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'TisFrank McCourt Read by the author HarperCollins £8.99, three hours approxBuy it at BOL

Frank McCourt brought fame to the family name when his childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, was published in 1996. This sequel picks up where the first novel left off and 19-year-old Frank has made his journey back to New York - the place of his birth.

After a scrape with a lusty, drunken priest, he determines to lay off the booze and gets his head down to work in a hotel as a cleaner. The old troubles haunt him - his bad teeth and his sore, infected eyes but adulthood brings a pessimism to Frank's words and a lack of joy in life. It's not surprising the man is depressed after his hard childhood, but this account is far less mischievous and humorous than the days of scraping coal off the road and existing on a diet of fried bread and jam.

Unlike his brothers, Michael and Malachy, who also fetch up in New York and start a successful bar business, Frank is a serious fellow and reads his story as such. An immediate reaction is to ask why he didn't get some cheeky Irish actor to read it for him, but why should he?

This is Frank McCourt, this is how he talks. And gladly his years in America have not eroded that infectious Irish brogue. Is it as good as the first?